Proper passions
by planet p
Summary: AU; Samantha hates Aylmer, so there's got to be a rational explanation for why she's standing at his door, right? / Set in the same world as 'I swear it's you.' Samantha/Aylmer
1. Chapter 1

**Proper passions** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

**I decided to write something Samantha/Aylmer because I'd wanted to write something Bruno/Darol but couldn't come up with anything. The characters are also featured in _I swear it's you_.**

**I also couldn't remember either of their eye colours, so I'll have to go and look that up sometime soon.**

**Yes, it's AU; yes, it's disturbing, cos it's me, after all.**

* * *

Her legs shook, wobbled in all sorts of ways underneath her trench coat, but the coat was so long it hid most of the shaking, and when she'd sat down to pull on her shoes she'd chosen tennis shoes instead of anything fancier so that she wouldn't trip over or twist her ankle.

She was there, now, standing in front of his bedroom door with the lie that they were working on a project for science class together cold and hard like a shard of flint driven through her chest; it only made her legs shake harder. She couldn't believe she'd faced his parents and lied to their faces.

When she reached up a hand and fisted up her fingers to knock on his door, she noticed that her hands were shaking, too. She was cold, and she felt sick. She didn't want to be here, not really, but she couldn't back out now.

She kept remembering the way, just for a moment, Darol had brushed Bruno's hand with her perfect, little fingers like ballerina's legs, and she felt hard, and in pain; like a ball of tightly wound wire, ready to snap.

She knocked on the door, quickly and quietly, just once. She half hoped he wouldn't hear; she half hoped she'd lose her nerve and run.

The door split open a crack to reveal a face that only made things worse; ten fold. "Samantha, isn't this quite the surprise!" Aylmer declared, pulling the door open wider, so that she could see into his bedroom.

She felt really ill.

Without saying anything, she stepped into the bedroom and reached over for the doorhandle. His hand slipped from the handle as she took it, and she shut the door behind her.

"What's this about now, Sammy?" Aylmer asked, his expression a study of enquiry.

She hated that he'd used that name. She wasn't Sammy, and she had no older brother.

She was Samantha.

"I hadn't thought you'd had it in you," she forced herself to repeat the line she'd rehearsed in her mind a hundred times on the walk to his house from hers. "I mean, A+ on a chemistry paper, that's got to be unheard of for you, hasn't it?" She'd meant to sound sarcastic, but she could hear her voice quaking, and she was sure he could, too.

He hadn't raised a hand to her, in any case.

With quavering hands, she set her fingers to the buttons of her trench coat, pulling them free of their buttonholes one by one, and yanked open the trench coat, letting it fall from her shoulders and slide along her arms and the backs of her legs to the floor.

Aylmer gave a low whistle. "Damn!" he muttered. "This isn't all because of one chem paper, is it? Cos, if it is, I gotta say, Sammy… the world of science is definitely looking up for me!"

She watched his eyes travel down her naked body, from her quivering shoulders to the tennis shoes she, ridiculously, still wore. As his eyes sunk lower, she found her own eyes following in a similar direction.

Her chest felt like it'd turned to a hard lump. She couldn't draw breath properly, her lungs had all melted together like plastic in a fire which had then, taken out of the flames, solidified again, horribly disfigured. He'd gone hard.

"Are you for real, Sammy?" he asked, his hands coming up to clamp onto her upper arms. "All this, for me?"

All she could do was nod. She was slowly suffocating, she thought.

He didn't care. His eyes sparkled darkly. A coarse chuckle rose in his throat. "Hang on, did you come over here like this? All this way in…" he gave a cursory nod to the trench coat on the floor, "nothing more than that?"

She nodded again. She was shivering all over now, but she didn't care.

"You must be positively icy," he told her, as though he hadn't, or didn't care less even, to notice the way she was shaking.

She nodded. Her eyes felt like they were swimming. She prayed she didn't lose her last dignity and cry in front of this disgusting excuse for a boy who she'd come to give herself to.

He rubbed his palms up and down her arms. "You're shaking, Dorothy," he said.

She ignored his words.

Clamping his hands to her arms with a vicelike grip, he turned her on the spot, and began to back her toward the bed. She let her feet carry her backward until she felt her legs bump into a mattress and she fell, with a soft thud, to the bed.

The look of pleasure on Aylmer's face made her want to kill him on the spot. She scrabbled at one of her tennis shoes with her other shoe and pushed it off the bed, then repeated the same thing for the other.

The sound of her shoes hitting the floor was too hard; the tears in her eyes welled.

Then, Aylmer was on top of her.

She began a stumbling, shaking chant in her mind; she wouldn't puke. Not in front of Aylmer, not in front of anyone. She could be as strong as she wanted.

She felt Aylmer's weight pressed against her, trapping her.

"You ready for this, Dorothy?" Aylmer asked, and she realised that she'd been staring stiffly ahead of her at his bedroom ceiling for a long time.

She nodded, and gritted her teeth. She didn't want to look at him, it was bad enough that she had to feel him against her, on top of her, his hot skin against her quivering skin.

She tried to think of something else. _The whole _point_ is to think about this, and stop thinking about Bruno!_ she reminded herself.

She gave a high, clear cry of horror.

She forced her mind to clear. _It's just Aylmer!_ she told herself. She got this; she'd watched a documentary on television about it; she _got_ it!

She couldn't _breathe_.

Aylmer's hands found hers and he lifted one, and then the other, above her head, arranging her fingers around the bars of the bed head.

She gripped the bars tightly, afraid, and let her eyes open.

"Hey, ah, are you getting any of this, or is it just me?" Aylmer asked in a voice which would have been conversational if it hadn't been so puffy and strained.

Her fingers tightened painfully on the bars, fingernails digging into her palms. She opened her mouth, and realised she didn't have anything to say.

Aylmer grinned. "You're such a _good_ girl, Sammy," he told her. "You don't have to be afraid of me. So _quiet_."

Her throat constricted. He was insulting her, she just _knew_ it! Even that revolting sparkle in his eye was only about insulting her!

He sucked in a rough breath and drive into her more deeply.

She grasped the bars convulsively, as though for dear life, but she couldn't feel any pain, her fingers and toes had all gone numb. She grew suddenly scared that she was about to throw up.

"Sammy! Hey, Sammy!" Aylmer's voice interrupted her whirling, cartwheelling fears. "I'm right here, dumplin'. Right where I've been from the get go. You're one odd girl, I gotta say."

She stared at him in horror.

"Lighten up, shiny thing," he suggested, patting the side of her face with a hand. "You're all kinds of wonderful; I ain't complainin'."

She felt her cheeks go warm, though she didn't know why they would. Aylmer was the last person on Earth she'd take a compliment from!

A little moan fluttered from her throat. It sounded strange; she wondered, for a moment, where it'd come from.

Suddenly, she felt herself still. On top of her, Aylmer had fallen into a slack, unmoving lump.

The warmth disappeared, along with the butterfly feeling – the butterflies were all dead, their shrivelled, desiccating corpses strewn at her feet and across her body, in the pit of her stomach.

She felt panic rise in her. Had she done something wrong? Was he upset at her? Would he hurt her now?

His head was rested on the bed beside hers; she could feel his harsh, heavy breaths on her hair when he turned his head. "Fuck, I'm sorry," he told her in a low voice. "I don't think I'm gonna be able to make this thing work today, Dorothy."

"Try harder!" she hissed. The shock of the words stung. They couldn't have really have been her words, could they?

Aylmer chuckled and lifted his head up off the mattress, brushing his lips against her cheek as though in accident.

Samantha's eyes widened.

Aylmer's teeth had hardened to sharp, angry points. "You're a rainbow," he told her in that same low voice that came out as a growl now. "I'd hate to break you."

Suddenly, she found her hands had left the bars of the bed head and she was pushing frantically at his chest, but getting nowhere.

He was so _heavy_ compared to her flimsy weight!

"I'm sorry. Did I scare you?" he asked in a growl which showed a shimmer of genuine sentiment underneath.

She _definitely_ didn't want to hear _that_! Her hands curled into tiny, pounding fists. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she was hurting him. She wondered if she _could_ hurt him!

She wondered what the fuck he _was_!

"You're not even going to finish what you started!" she spat at him, to her own astonishment as much as his.

"I- I'm not sure that would be a wise move, Samantha," he admitted gruffly.

"Are you a vampire?" she demanded.

Laughter bubbled up in his throat, simultaneously amused and strangled. "No, Sammy, I'm not," he replied.

"Get the fuck off me!" she hissed, her voice twisted in cold anger.

He nodded. "Alright, that's only fair."

* * *

At the bedroom door, clad in the trench coat once more, she said, "What are you?" Her voice wasn't kind or soft; she was frightened of herself.

Aylmer grinned. The pointed teeth were still there. "I'm special," he told her, and tossed his head. "Of course, 'special' 's another way of politely saying 'fucked over,'" he remarked, dry-voiced.

His voice had returned to some semblance of normality, then.

She said nothing; she turned and walked out.

Outside, she let her tears slide down her face. She ran all the way home, and by the time she got there her face hurt with the tears that had frozen her cheeks.

* * *

"I want to."

"What's that, dumplin'?"

"I said, "I want to'!"

"What do you want, rainbow?"

"I want us to finish what we started."

They were standing in the girls' breezeway, outside of the girls' toilet, trading in whispers, though they were the last of the stragglers to wander inside from the high school's playing field.

He was on his way to Sickbay for a dab of disinfectant and a sticky plaster for a scratch he'd got when they'd been playing soccer, so he'd headed to the girls' breezeway instead of the boys'; it was closest to the Sickbay.

"What…? You mean that thing on Saturday?" he asked, struggling to follow. His face was creased into an unusual frown.

She crossed her arms over her chest, then let them drop back to her sides. She really didn't have the time to explain this in agonising detail to him, and, besides, she didn't _want_ to! She should have been getting changed out of her PE uniform with all of the other girls. "What do you think, Edward?" she hissed.

He grinned, and, then, in his typically loud, sly voice, said, "Hey! No, sure! Anytime, dumplin'!"

Miss Habel walked into the breezeway, pulling a face at them both.

Samantha pointed to the girls' toilets, and Aylmer threw out his chin in the direction of the door she'd just come through. She was going to get changed; he was headed that way.

"Miss," Aylmer greeted, as Samantha made her getaway into the girls' toilets.

Miss Habel continued walking.

Aylmer gave a soft laugh and marched off for the door. When he reached the Sickbay, he dropped his head to check out his graze again, only to find that it'd already healed.

He suppressed any cuss words that might've wanted to come out, and headed off for the boys' toilets. He'd have to change back into his standard school uniform quick smart and hope nobody noticed the graze was _Bam! And the dirt is gone!_ whilst he was changing.

He let his feet drag; maybe he'd take his time, he decided, that way he'd be the last to change, hopefully after the others had already left and damn it if he was late for next period. It wasn't as though everybody didn't fit him as one of the truancy types already, anyway!

* * *

On his way into the boys' toilets he bumped into Lenoi coming out. Lenoi shot him a wink and said, "The emblematic coast is clear, my friend. I'm the last."

He said nothing but kept walking; the door closed behind him.

* * *

He sat down at one of the benches lining the walls when he'd changed, and spent a long time tying his shoelaces. Just because everyone believed him to be an unmanageable bastard, as immoral as he was heartless, didn't mean he didn't have doubts over this thing he'd let himself get involved in with Samantha, and all because she was a cute kid who did all kinds of things to his motor with just the sound of her voice.

He should have known better than to fall for that, especially with a kid like Samantha.

Lenoi would have never fallen for it, of that he was sure.

He finished tying his last lace, finally, and stood. He needed to get to class now, anyway, so he could just kick any previous thoughts to the curb.

And he needed to pay attention _in_ class.

* * *

"What should we do about this… thing?" he asked, as he was leaving the schoolyard after school and so was she.

She didn't look at him as she walked, she just kept walking.

He watched her kick a bit of trash, a crushed soda can, its colours faded with age, and made a split second decision to follow her. It wasn't as though they went home in the same directions, and she wasn't stopping for him, either. "So what's with your brother?" he asked in a lowered voice. "Those were some of my top creepy vibes yet, and he didn't so much as bat an eyelid. He some kind of… funny?"

"He goes to a special school," Samantha muttered, kicking the can in front of her with a shoe. "I don't know what's wrong with him, so give it up! Mom and Dad obviously don't believe I have the necessary skill set to _handle_ knowing something like that."

"You're a smart girl, Sammy. Don't you think it's time you laid down the law?"

She laughed and spun her chin about to glare at him. "No! Cos you know why? I'm a kid! And kids don't get to lay down the law!"

He shrugged.

"Not in our household," she snapped at him.

"Fair enough," he replied.

Some parents were like that; with some families, it worked well; with others, not so well. After all, some kids needed it. Well, probably all kids needed it at one point or another in their lives, he reflected. It was just a matter of not overdoing it, and of not letting it slip, of continually reinforcing it.

He sighed. "So, what? You want me to come to your house? How is that gonna look to your folks? I ain't gonna be raising any eyebrows turnin' up on your doorstep, am I?"

She answered with a strangled laugh.

He stopped abruptly and threw out a hand to catch her arm in an iron grip; she wasn't going anywhere until he decided she was.

She spun back to him at once, raising a hand to retaliate, but he caught it before she could muster anything harmful. She glared at him, seething, through dark eyes.

He pulled her to him with bone-jarring swiftness, capturing her wrist behind her back with one hand and placing another hand behind her head, tangled in her hair, his lips hovering over her mouth so close she could feel the heat of them on her own lips.

She resisted the overwhelming urge to lick her lips.

"I just asked you a question, now I'd appreciate if you deigned me with an answer," he scowled, pronouncing 'answer' as 'ahnswer.'

"I know somewhere," she hissed, barely moving her lips as she did. "Get your fucking hands off of me, loser!"

"I assume this 'somewhere' is both discrete and comfortable," he pressed.

Her eyes shot hazel daggers at him as their breath mingled.

"Fuck, shit!" he cursed. He crashed his lips against hers, kissing her long and greedily.

Samantha made a little mewing sound.

Aylmer dropped his hands from her hair and her wrists abruptly and propelled her backward, away from him. "SHIT! FUCK! CAN'T YOU JUST FUCKING STAY AWAY FROM ME!" he screamed, suddenly, uncontrollably.

He couldn't do this! He couldn't be near her and not be able to have her! Not be able to have her like he _needed_ her!

The small shove he'd given her was nothing compared to the wave of fury she felt run off him. She felt it, as though it was real, and it both scared her and intoxicated her: she had _real_ power over him! She could _hurt_ him!

It made her hungry; it made her want to finish what they'd started.

Her mouth split into a smirk and she looked him over with a casual brush of her eyes. "Oh, dear," she said.

His eyes hardened to stone and she saw that he was visibly shaking. "Don't tempt me, girl!" he growled from low in the back of his throat.

She smiled all the wider. "What'll you do?" she teased, and, with a violent swish of air, she felt her chin bang against his chest.

"You have no idea," he growled, dead serious, as he looked down on her with bluish-purplish eyes.

_Like flowers_, she thought, as her breath slipped away from her.

* * *

The nature reserve was the 'somewhere' she'd been talking about, and it had a nice, little picnic area which was nicely deserted in this weather. She turned to look at him, her schoolbag hitting against her back as she walked, and grinned.

He made no comment. It was out in the open, and it wouldn't have been his choice, that much was certain.

She noticed that his eyes had returned to faded grey.

She slipped the straps of her schoolbag from her arms and let the bag _plonk!_ on the ground, stopping and turning to him fully. "Kiss me again," she told him.

He bent over to pick up her bag and deposited of both of the schoolbags at one of the picnic tables before returning to her. He put a hand under her chin and looked into her eyes. "I'm a monster," he said seriously. "I eat little girls like you for dessert."

She laughed, her eyes rolling up for a moment.

The youthful, puffy sound stabbed at his chest.

He lifted her chin with his hand and carefully brought his mouth to meet hers.

* * *

All the while that they were kissing, Aylmer kept reminding himself that she wasn't like him; that she needed to breathe on a regular basis, that he couldn't bite her because she wouldn't just heal up like he did. It put a dampener on things, and it was extremely frustrating, but he couldn't give her up now. He had to _keep_ her.

If he couldn't, he felt like he'd stop existing.

Which was exactly his objection to what they'd started in the first place. She'd think he was some kind of lunatic, or a control freak; and, for all he knew, she'd be right in thinking it!

He pressed her against a large pine tree and tried not to squeeze her to death.

* * *

Samantha tugged at his clothes. She had to get them off; she had to get back to the feeling she'd been too frightened to acknowledge two days earlier. She needed him to be with her on this, inside of her. She needed to be _free_.

He hoisted her up against the tree's rough bark and tangled himself between her legs, and her arms, but they were still wearing too much clothing, and she was _so_ hot! It was killing her!

She moaned and pushed at him. "Fuck me, for fuck's sake! Fuck me, now!"

* * *

The ground was hard, and pine needles and little bits of twigs and tiny pebbles, or bits of gravel, reached up to pinch into her exposed skin, but she felt none of this is the wake of what she felt bursting inside her, eating her up with hungry flames.

She couldn't wriggle, or pull, or scratch enough of him to put that flame out. She groaned and giggled and her throat hitched, and she groaned again.

What was wrong with him – why would he do this to her? And what was wrong with her – why would she want him to? Over and over and over again.

Yes, she decided, they would have to do this again.

She writhed and bucked and rocked, and the trees whistled in the wind around them. She was going to love this place forever after today.

She gave a sharp cry as he bit into her upper arm, and a peel of laughter exploded from her throat. Crap, he'd actually bitten her!

If he was the monster, then what was she? she wondered. What was she who would excite such passions inside of him?

* * *

When it was over, when they were both panting for breath and pulling clothes back on, she looked over and frowned at the tattoo adorning his lower back. _A dragon, maybe?_ she thought. But why did he have it? Surely he wasn't old enough for tattoos, yet; as she wasn't.

She dropped her eyes to the forest floor and did not broach the subject.

She was just pulling on her cardigan when he backed her against a tree and brushed the cardigan away, and began kissing the bite mark on her arm.

It stung but she said nothing.

He had a tattoo, and she had a bite mark.

Wasn't she the proper little rebel! she thought.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a week on, and she'd decided to take a walk in the 'woods.' Well, at least, no one had commented on her bite, which was probably because no one had noticed it, she thought. It was a good thing, though; she didn't _want_ anyone to comment on it.

And, right now, she just wanted to take a walk in the forest.

Aylmer walked beside her in a bored amble which made her think of lycanthropes. He was well tall enough for it and he was certainly one strange boy, for a boy.

She'd just finished remarking that he'd ought not to address her 'brother,' Bobby, by Bub, or else he wanted to incur her temper, to which he'd given a short, cursory nod of agreement.

"He doesn't get anxious, does he?" he asked. "What, with you both going to separate schools."

Samantha frowned. "I don't know; it's not the sort of thing I ask when I see him. I don't think that'd be Mom's cup of tea; she'd probably ground me for a month, if I ever took to the notion."

Aylmer returned the frown. "He stays there, at this… _special school_?"

She nodded.

"Do you ever get angry about that? He is your brother, after all."

"I'm not allowed to get angry!" she snapped, then, relenting, glanced at him shortly. She didn't know why they were even talking about this.

She'd almost gotten his name wrong; before Aylmer had piped up with the name Bobby, she'd been about to call him Brian. He wasn't even her _real_ brother. But then, Aylmer wasn't to know any different; he wasn't a mind reader, after all.

They trudged on through the trees.

For a few minutes, they didn't speak. Then, she glanced over at him walking beside her, and frowned. She looked at his hand.

"Can I hold your hand?" she asked.

It was probably the silliest thing _ever_, but she just wanted to hold someone's hand. Of course, they hadn't got themselves lost, they'd taken one of the visitor-friendly paths.

She told herself it was because her hand was cold, but, really, it wasn't that. She was wearing a pair of new gloves, after all. She'd got them from her aunt in the mail.

"Well, I don't see why not," Aylmer decided, offering her his hand.

She took his hand and they kept walking.

_This is it_, she thought. _Next, it's going to be boyfriends and girlfriends! Why am I doing this to myself? I hate Aylmer! I really _hate_ him!_

It really was beside the point, she thought, that he could make her feel good inside her really quite dastard body, with its lying hands and deceitful mouth. She was the picture of pathetic, which was what had warded off Bruno from the beginning, and which Aylmer, in all of his grand delusion, called being a 'rainbow.'

She stopped by a particularly nondescript looking tree and turned to Aylmer. "Will you be my boyfriend, Aylmer?" she asked, though she really didn't want him to be her boyfriend. She guessed she really was _that_ desperate for a boyfriend that she'd have chosen just about anyone for the part.

Aylmer stared at her face, then at the ground. "Am I allowed to kiss you whenever I want… if I'm your boyfriend," he asked.

She made a face. What a silly thing to ask! She gave a shrug and swung her arm about, with the hand that was holding his; his arm swung about, too. "I don't know," she muttered. "I guess."

He lifted his face up and looked into her face. "What about now?"

"What about it?" she asked, starting to lose patience with his silly, silly game.

"Can I kiss you right now?"

She frowned. "Well, you haven't given me my answer, yet," she said simply.

"Yes."

Her frowning face twitched. Stupid boy, stupid girl! "Then, I suppose, maybe, yes."

"Is that 'maybe' or is that 'yes'?"

"It's 'yes' of course, you…" She swung her arm harder, searching for the word, "stupid thing!"

He stepped toward her quickly and scooped her up in his arms, drawing her toward him, and pressing her to his chest, and his lips to hers.

She blinked. _Oh, bollocks!_ she thought. She'd been reading some novel by some English or Scottish writer, she couldn't quite remember which.

She stepped on his foot with her shoe, not too hard, though. "Contain your excitement, now," she told him, when he'd given her some space for breathing. "You'll get me excited, too, and then it'll just turn into a mad, ravenous what have you."

"'Mad, ravenous what have you,'" he growled with a grin, parroting her words back at her in a most annoying fashion as he attempted to steer her backward in the direction of some tree, she supposed.

"Look," she said, "I'm not in the mood. I want to go for a walk, that's it; no funny business."

He frowned. "I'm in the mood," he said in a lowered voice.

"Well isn't that jolly for you, fellow," she remarked.

"Just a kiss!" he said.

"You've had a kiss," she told him.

"Just _one_ more!"

She rolled her eyes.

She wanted to walk – not _kiss_!

Actually, she wouldn't have minded kissing Bruno, but she was supposed to be over that, already, and, besides, Bruno was into Darol, so it'd likely never happen outside of her pathetic daydreams.

"One, and no more," she gave in, ignoring the puppy-dog-with-a-bone look he'd just gotten. It made her want to puke, frankly.

He leant in for the kiss.

She yelped, and smacked his hand. "I did not say that you could pinch me _there_!" she cried, outraged. "Did you hear me say any such thing? When did I say it?"

He looked at her.

She pointed a finger at him. "No more pinching!" she reminded him.

He pulled her to him and kissed her. His hand invariably snuck around to rest on her bottom, and then, as if following suit, his other hand, too.

She moaned. Damn it! What was with him!

She snapped her fingers next to his ear. Nothing happened. She snapped them again. Again, nothing. She grabbed his ear and tugged on it.

His face got an _Ow!_ look. "What was that for?" he asked, confused; his ear hurt, now.

She slumped to one side. Right, sure, his _ear_ hurt! She leant forward and clapped her hands over his backside in demonstration. "Grow up!" she advised him, taking back her hands.

He grinned. "I am grown up. That's the cool part about being grown up, ain't it?"

She wobbled her head from side to side. "'Ain't'! I hate that word! Ain't!"

"Now you 's jus' sayin' tha', you ain't really mean i'," he chirped.

"I REALLY _MEAN_ IT!" she yelled at him right to his face. Was he hard of hearing, or what?

He wrapped his arms around her arms and pulled her against him. "Come 'ere, rainbow!"

She suppressed a growl at his cheerful tone and sighed heavily.

He was insufferable! Simply insufferable!

* * *

They returned from their walk to find a family having lunch at one of the picnic tables, well, at least making a good go of it; it had started to drizzle. Dad didn't look like he was ready to be deterred, mom looked annoyed at the breeze that had picked up; the kids had retreated to the safety and shelter of their expensive 4WD.

The fireplace wasn't having a bar of it.

Aylmer threw the mom and dad a nod as they passed at a wide berth, heading for the parking lot's entrance/exit, and the road that lay beyond that.

Samantha pulled the hood of her raincoat up over her head, making sure she tucked her hair into the sides properly. She was _so_ not in the mood for rain!

Beside her, Aylmer's strides were infuriatingly springy.

He took her hand as they reached the exit and stepped onto the adjoining road.

_God, somebody please shoot me now!_ she thought.

* * *

She was down at the shops with her mom, feeling bored and stupid as her mom checked out what was on offer and what she could make for tea, when Samantha spotted Bruno's mom, Patience.

She watched the older woman – well, old woman – for a while, before giving up. Bruno's mom sure was strange. Today, she was all of a cheerful flutter.

Personally, Samantha didn't see what there was to be cheerful about; the weather sucked, what her mom was going to make for tea would probably suck – her _boyfriend_ sucked!

She contemplated, for a moment, just dumping him again, but then she'd really be moving into bitch territory, and she liked to think she wasn't that big of a bitch, yet. She missed being a sad-as-shit little girl who really wouldn't have harboured anyone anything stronger than a powerful dislike or a powerful distaste.

_Yeah, you miss it so much you hate your own _boyfriend_, who you really hated in the first place and only asked to be your boyfriend because the boy you _really_ wanted is with someone else_, she thought. _Way to amp it up, cheerleader! Way to _dig_ it!_

Not to mention all of the lies she'd been weaving lately.

Well, she would have blamed it on that annoying boy whom Aylmer was currently getting around thinking was her brother, but it'd really all kicked itself into motion before said annoying boy had even turned up.

Really, it'd been one of those crappy potholes you sometimes hit in life waiting to happen!

She didn't get what Kelly Clarkson was on about, personally, either. Aylmer wasn't a 'beautiful disaster,' and she wasn't anything like the girl in Kelly and What's-it-who's song.

Apparently.

And she wasn't trying to save Aylmer; she'd sooner leave him by the wayside!

She picked up a squished-up looking 'squash' – according to the name attached to the shelf with the price – and turned to her mother. "What about this?" she asked. "What do you make with this, do you reckon? I dunno what it is, but it can be promising, right?"

"It's a squash, pumpkin heart. Put it away, your dad doesn't like squash. It's bland. For that matter, neither do I. You wouldn't like it; we had it when you were younger and you turned your nose up at it then…"

Samantha put it back on the shelf. She felt deflated. So, right, her old folks didn't like it; she'd turned her nose up at it, once!

Well, maybe she was changing! Looking for her _real_ self!

She'd turned her nose up at Aylmer once, too.

It was _so_ lame that her mom still called her 'pumpkin heart;' she didn't even know what that _meant_! It sounded like she had some crazy complex multiple personality disorder, she thought.

She frowned at the leeks. Yeah, right, she still didn't like leek.

She hummed Kelly C.'s _Gone_ particularly badly and trailed away after her mother.

_Hey, Momma Pumpkin_, she wanted to say, _Bobby wants pizza; can we get that?_ But Bobby wasn't her brother; she didn't have a brother. _I'm alone_, she thought.

_Thanks mom and dad, you're stars!_


	3. Chapter 3

At home, she turned up Kelly Clarkson's _Walk Away_ on her stereo and climbed up onto her bed to sing along. She was aware that she sucked, but she decided not to care. Hell, why should she it? It was probably unhealthy that she did.

Aylmer wouldn't care if she sucked, she thought. Then, again, did she really want to encourage his _baby doll_ thoughts on her; did she really just want to be some guy's sexy toy?

She stifled a laugh with her hand, her balance rocking dangerously on the spring mattress.

Wow, _geez_, she didn't even have one of those _all that_ bodies!

_Who else is he gonna get?_ she considered. _Yeah, probably…_

She wondered if picture-perfect family had had any luck with their picnic endeavour.

* * *

"So, what are you truly?" she asked, as they trailed behind the others waiting to board the bus to go to the stadium for their Gym class. Her feet were sweaty in her stupid sneakers, and she was studiously keeping herself from looking at Bruno. "What do they call you? Or what do you call you?"

"What makes you think there is a _name_?" he returned, mildly.

It was practically laughable that _she_ was conducting an actual conversation with _Aylmer Creep_, and it was no less of a crack up that it was a conversation in whispers!

She snorted. Sure, there had to be some sort of name, even if it was just one he'd mentally penned himself and disproportionately fallen in _love_ with since. It was _so Spiderman_, come on!

"Reaper," he whispered.

Her step faltered. "What?"

"Reaper," he repeated. "That's what it's called… What I am."

She flushed hot and cold. He'd just made that up to freak her out, hadn't he!

She gave a quiet laugh. Well, she wasn't buying it!

He offered a half shrug, and said, dismissively, "It's not _my_ name, anyway."

She didn't ask him to explain; a part of her wanted to stay the Hell away from anything like that. He was probably in some kind of gang, she thought. Some kind of violent, criminal gang.

He barged in front of her to get into the bus first, throwing back a loud, obnoxious, "Hey, watch it, Ipanema Nightmare!"

She resisted the urge to hit him over the head, a shard of cold fury flashing in her eyes. _Thanks for nothing, loser!_

* * *

On the bus trip, she closed her eyes. She wasn't interested in following Aylmer's annoying conversation with Lenoi, who'd saved a seat for his 'best man' at the back of the bus, even if she'd have been able to hear it from all the way up the front, behind the bus driver.

She hoped everyone thought she was tearful, Aylmer included. The old Samantha would have cried, she thought.

_She_ didn't feel like crying, _she_ felt like hitting _Aylmer_.

She balled her hands into tight fists beside her for added affect.

* * *

She got off the bus last, as old Samantha would have, and traipsed towards the stadium behind the other kids.

Inside, she stopped at the vending machine and put in some coins for a bottle of overpriced sports drink, whether it was allowed or not, and slumped, snapping open the safety collar with a quick twist and unscrewing the lid for a quick sip. She took a sip, and then a gulp.

She almost choked on the cold, refrigerated liquid. She took another gulp. She was thirsty; her head hurt from lying.

She hated lying.

"Samantha, is anything the matter?" their Gym teacher asked, approaching her.

She had the good grace to look guilty, then bobbed her head and said timidly, "No, Mr. Cummings. I was just thirsty. I'm fine."

Mr. Cummings nodded, then turned and walked away to join the other kids shouting or laughing or rushing into warm up stretches.

_And there he goes_, she thought. _Just like that, Sammy._

She took another gulp of her cold drink, feeling lousy. Geez, the guy felt bad for her. If it'd been anyone else, she was sure they'd have had a blasting to take.

_But not Sammy._

* * *

She was atrocious at basketball, and Aylmer's constant humming didn't help. She really hated that _Alfie_ song, then.

Every once in a while, like the little creep he was, Lenoi would flash her one of his best golden grins. She ignored them.

She bet he'd shut his trap if she told him what _precisely_ she'd been doing with his best fella of late.

Unless he already knew, she thought, and that was what all the smirking crap was about.

With a disgusted leap of her stomach, she chucked the basketball at Aylmer's head when she finally got the ball. She had an excellent aim, of course, but Aylmer wasn't to know she'd done it on purpose.

Then again, the smile might have been a bit of a giveaway. To Aylmer. Mr. Cummings actually looked like he thought it'd been an accident. She wanted to yell, _Don't look at me like that! Stop making me feel guilty for feeling shit! What gives you any more right to feel things than me!_

She didn't.

She didn't get the ball again.

* * *

"Quit acting like such an effing jerk," she snapped, on her way out of the stadium, when Aylmer fell back to 'toy' with her, walking backward in front of her.

She shot forward and punched him in the arm, defiantly.

He laughed, but didn't try it again. His eyes flashed angrily at her.

Her stomach twisted. She hadn't forgotten how scared she'd been of him once; she hadn't forgotten what he'd said about 'creepy vibes.'

She pretended not to notice, and dashed to catch up with the others, hunching over as she ran off like a real dits.

* * *

She walked to the reserve alone. He'd gotten detention for something shitty he'd done, and she hadn't waited around.

She sunk down at one of the picnic tables; she didn't turn to examine the fireplace where the family had been yesterday. She closed her eyes and listened to the trees conversing with the breeze.

Stupidly, she'd almost fallen asleep when she heard someone whisper, "Dorothy," and her chin jerked up, her eyes snapping open.

_Aylmer__, you fuck!_ she thought. She punched him in the arm with force; her hand felt funny, tired.

It hurt when she punched him.

He grinned and took a seat at the table beside her. "Hey, you had a good thing there in Gym!" he told her. "You were spot on, Sammy. I'm incongruitionally proud."

"That's not a _word_, moron," she informed him, mouthing the last word.

He shrugged a shoulder. "And, yeah, I apologise for that Ipanema thing, before you ask. It was cheap and tacky. It wiped the floor. But it made Lenoi happy."

She glared at him with eyes that promised pain. "And why should _you_ think you owe _anything_ to Lenoi?" she spat.

"I don't owe him anything. He's my mate," Aylmer told her.

"Surely you could _wipe_ him out and he'd be able to do exactly shit all to stop you!" she hissed.

Aylmer frowned, disconcerted. "He's not what you think, Samantha," he said, uncharacteristically melancholy, if only in a particularly bland manner.

She laughed. The sound stuck. She dropped the laugh.

"They really fucked him over, Sammy," he whispered.

"Who did?" she hissed nastily.

He reached into her lap and took up her hand. "The people who gave me that tattoo."

She felt a chill run through her.

He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it. "I'm sorry if I scare you when I say stupid crap like this. I don't mean to… scare you, I mean."

She didn't tug her hand back. She didn't know what to feel. Was he having one over her? Or what?

He said something to her which she didn't get.

"What?" she snapped insensitively.

"I'm so happy to know that I have you," he told her plainly. "I'm so _happy_."

She made a face and pulled her hand back. "You're such a freak," she shot. She shuffled closer to him on the table's bench seat. "If you're so happy to have me, then why aren't you kissing me?"

He dipped his face to hers and kissed her softly.

She hated that he was so _gentle_. She hated what it might mean.

Breaking the kiss, he said, "I'm always gonna love you, Sammy. Even if you don't love me. I can feel it. I think you're the One."

As if disconnected from her body, she felt herself shoot to her feet. Then she was running, running away from him as fast as she could. She didn't even know why.

* * *

Her mom stared at her strangely.

Her face was flushed and she was panting, gasping horribly for breath. She wasn't wearing her schoolbag – she must have left it at the stupid nature reserve, she thought.

She ignored her mom's look and ran the short way to her bedroom.

She fell down on her bed.

She walked out of her room a few minutes later and caught Aylmer's voice – he was standing at her _front_ door, talking to her _mom_.

"I think this is Sam's bag," he told her mom, passing her mom her schoolbag.

She felt herself go cold. Crap, he might have won her mom with the 'I think,' but he'd lost her at 'Sam'!

She changed course and stalked towards the front door, grabbing the doorhandle as she reached it. "Go jerk yourself, loser!" she snapped angrily, and snapped the front door closed in his face.

Her mom stared at her.

She snatched her bag from her mom and turned on her heel and stalked off back to her room. _Whatever!_

Her mom wouldn't be gawping at her like that if she even knew how _over_ they were! And how it was _so_ Aylmer's fault!

If he hadn't felt the need to say something so stupid, then she'd have been fine with what they had.

Knowing what she did, however, about how he felt – or wanted to _play_ at feeling for kicks, or out of some idiotic notion that said it'd have her eating out of his hand for it – she couldn't abide.

They were _so_ over!

She was _so_ over him _forever_.


	4. Chapter 4

Her scream split the night air with the swift precision of a sharpened knife through butter. The day before, she'd left a note in Aylmer's locker – she'd slipped it through the vent in his locker door – to make it official: they were over; he was a _creep_! She wanted nothing more to do with him!

She hadn't meant for it to be dark; she'd been waiting for practically _ever_ for him to turn up. And whilst she'd been waiting, too angry to go back, too angry to be stood _up_; it had simply grown dark.

Sitting at a picnic table, she'd heard a noise she thought might be a raccoon and she'd grown irrationally afraid she'd be bitten. Wild, little creatures carried all sorts of diseases; it was always on the television.

In the cloudy twilight, she'd hurried away, toward the toilet block where she didn't think anyone would have left any food, and there was a _light_. She had an aerosol deodorant in her schoolbag, and though it wasn't insect spray, she knew that insects didn't really like it, either; maybe it would keep them off her for a while.

She was _so_ going to kill Aylmer when he turned up!

But he hadn't.

She'd gotten anxious, and even madder. She'd felt an overwhelming urge to do some vandalism to public property; so she'd taken a walk along one of the tracks.

It was dark; it was stupid. She couldn't think; she didn't care, she half _hoped_ Aylmer would get scared she'd gotten lost, or eaten by a bear or something (not that they had bears, as far as she was aware).

Then she'd _really_ gotten lost.

She'd gotten scared. She'd heard the sound of something, a car or some farm machinery, and she'd started to run. Suddenly, she hadn't felt much like being alone in this stupid dark forest anymore!

And she'd tripped.

Rivulets of pain had shot up her arm from where she'd fallen hard with her arm outstretched to break the fall a little, and she'd sat messily on the ground, feeling tears needle her eyes. She was _so_ silly!

Tears had poured onto her face as she'd slowly flexed her arm; it still worked, it wasn't _broken_, it just _hurt_! A _lot_!

That was when she'd decided that she needed to go on, she needed to get back. Her parents would _kill_ her! She'd never stayed out this late before! _Ever_!

Holding her injured and sore arm to her chest, as though she might have been expected to have been holding a staff, she'd stuck out her other hand, finding the ground, and prepared herself to lean forward and push herself up off the ground, to her feet.

But something had bit her hand, stopping her.

At first, she'd been freaked out that it had been an insect: What if it had been a _scorpion_! Would she _die_!

But it wasn't an insect.

It was a bracelet.

A girl's bracelet.

She screamed.

* * *

And that was where Aylmer found her; sitting in the dirt, kind of curled over her knees, sobbing hysterically. So intent on sobbing was she, that she didn't even start when she heard Aylmer's sudden footfalls running toward her. She didn't pull away when he fell down beside her, she didn't even flinch when he touched her arm carefully.

She said, in a hoarse voice that she was surprised to find was hers, "It's Ursula's."

She opened her hand, slowly unclenching fingers, and the bracelet, coated in dirt and muck, slipped from her palm, the sound of its thud not even audible.

She hadn't needed to see the bracelet to know it was Ursula Cox's; she'd felt the plus-sign charm biting into her palm; solid and frozen beneath her fingers.

She was afraid Ursula's body was somewhere near, waiting for them to uncover it.

She shivered harder; she didn't protest when Aylmer's arms came around her.

* * *

It was twenty minutes later; Aylmer had rung the police on his satellite phone. Red, blue and white lights played over the scene; the area had been cordoned off with police tape. It flapped in the breeze that had ruffled up.

Samantha sat in the police car; the heater was on, she was still cold. She didn't know if she'd even be able to sleep tonight. If Ursula's body was found tonight, she wasn't sure she'd be able to eat for a week; if she'd been right here – still with them – all this time; so _close_! Waiting for someone to wake up!

She felt ill.

She remembered hearing that the last time Ursula had been seen alive, she'd been wearing that _bracelet_.

She shivered, trapped in her thoughts: Oh, God – _Bruno_! What was Bruno going to think? Oh, God!

She didn't hear the officer talking to her, until a hand was placed on her arm, and she jumped, turning her head quickly to see who'd touched her.

Then, from behind the officer, she saw her dad's car pull up. She didn't need to hear the officer's words.

"I'm sorry, dad," she whispered, as her dad came to stand beside the officer; tears cascaded down her pale face again.

* * *

**Proper passions** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.


	5. Chapter 5

"What were you doing with that boy? If you think I didn't notice, young lady, then you're sorely mistaken."

The officer had left them alone; afforded them some 'privacy.'

She didn't look at her dad; she just said, "He's my boyfriend."

She didn't hear her dad's quiet gasp. "My God!" She didn't ask him why he's said such a thing; he'd made it abundantly clear that he'd never believe in all _that_.

She said, "I found it; Ursula's bracelet. I just… found it; it was just lying on the _ground_. This is where he did it; this is where JR killed her. He had a car, I remember Bruno's mom saying he'd had a car. He'd used to come back from college to see her in that car, but this time, he'd come back to say goodbye. It was the last time she was going to see him, or anyone else again. But he was the only one who knew it."

"Sam."

She was startled from her trance by a warm hand closing over hers, a voice she knew. Not her dad's hand, not her dad's voice.

From her dad, an angered stare.

Aylmer.

She stared at him, without the anger her dad had. "She's dead," she breathed.

"We don't know that; nothing's set in stone; not now, not yet," Aylmer told her, never taking his eyes from hers, not for anything, not even to shake his head.

She gave a little whimper. "She's dead," she whispered uselessly.

Aylmer hugged her; she closed her eyes. She didn't care about her dad, she didn't care if he saw.

* * *

"That's enough." That was her dad, telling her that it was time to go home. She didn't argue; her mom was going to royally fly off the handle when her dad finished filling her in on the details, 'boyfriend' included.

She let her dad take her elbow and lead her away, toward the car. She didn't look back to see Aylmer; in her mind, he was still hugging her; hugging her like the earth and the dirt hugged Ursula's body, hugged her bones.

She cried silently; she pulled the car door closed after her.

Her dad didn't put the stereo on, he didn't even put the radio on.

She was in trouble, she supposed.

* * *

Her mom sent her to her bedroom, her face empty and pale, but full of cold fury. Then the yelling began.

Even if she'd put her hands over her ears, she wouldn't have been able to shield herself from its force. So she didn't; she didn't try. She just sat on her bed, in the dark, and let it all pass over her.

She was out there, she was still in that forest, alone and cold and sore; she was with her, with Ursula. _You're not alone_, she thought. _I'm with you; I've got you now. It's all going to be okay; I'm here._

Her mom was yelling, screaming the house down; Samantha wondered if any of the neighbours might be, at that very moment, dialling the police on their telephones. Maybe they'd all be dialling the department at the same time, and it'd take a while for them to get through, one by one.

How funny it would be, she thought; the cops coming around to her house after they'd just been out in the woods with her and Ursula's bracelet. They'd start to think she'd turned into some sort of attention junkie.

She laughed; her mother raged.


End file.
